1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector designed establish connection between at least a pair of electrical conductor. In particular, the present invention relates to a connector designed to receive a printed circuit board such as a co-called card edge printed circuit board.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some connectors are well known to receive a so-called card edge printed circuit board. Pairs of elastic terminals or contacts are fixed within a housing of the connector, for example. The individual contacts extend from the stationary end, fixed to the housing, to the free tip end. When the card edge printed circuit board is inserted into the housing of the connector, the card edge printed circuit board is held between the contacts of the individual pairs. The card edge printed circuit board is thus stationarily coupled to the connector.
The individual contacts are strongly urged against the surface of the card edge printed circuit board. Frequent insertion and withdrawal of the card edge printed circuit board induces abrasion of the resin material in the card edge printed circuit board. The abrasion generates dusts. If the dusts enter a space between the contacts and electrically conductive pads on the card edge printed circuit board, electric connection is hindered therebetween.
For example, one solution is to avoid contact between the electrically conductive pads and the contacts during the insertion and withdrawal of the card edge printed circuit board, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 54-98986. A sliding member is fixed to the free end of the contact in the disclosed connector. Sliding movement of the sliding member induces the contacts to get spaced from the electrically conductive pads of the card edge printed circuit board. However, this structure suffers from troublesome operations to couple the sliding member to the contact in the production process of the connector. The productivity thus gets deteriorated. Insertion and withdrawal of the card edge printed circuit board also suffer from troublesome operations.